RESEARCH IN COMMUNICATIONfrom a planners perspective

TBWA\BRUSSELS – NOVEMBER 15th 2011

Who is who?

Who believes that research…

… should be avoided in the creative process?

…kills good ideas?

… is the responsibility of the client and the research company?

… is the best way to avoid failure?

I personally don’t agree with any of these statements

Good research

n Helps to grow ideasn Raises more questions than it gives

answersn Should be part of every process (but

on the right moment)n Is an essential part of the job of a

planner

But what is good research?

Getting as close to reality as you can.

People don’t do what they say, and don’t say what they do.

Respondents react as rationally, not as an audience.

You only get answers to the questions you ask

data & insights

concepts pre-test post-test data & insights

LEARN EXPLAINPREDICT

CURRENT INVESTMENTS

data & insights

concepts pre-test post-test data & insights

LEARN EXPLAINPREDICT

SHOULD BECOME:

1. DATA & INSIGHTS

Data & insights

DATAn Nielsen/GFK/market evolutionn Monitoringn Benchmarkingn Desk researchn …

Data & insights

INSIGHTSn Qualitative researchn Interviewsn Social networksn …

n Essential part job of every planner!

2. CONCEPTS

Concepts

n Testing the strategy and the idea, not the execution!

STRATEGY

IDEA EXECUTION

Concepts

n Testing the strategy and the idea, not the execution!

LONDON CLOSER THAN EVER

AROUND THE CORNER

EXECUTION

Concepts

n With integrated campaigns, concepts are far more important than executions

BUT:n From a methodological point of view, this

is difficult to test.n Challenge the way research companies

test this!

3. PRETESTING

Pretesting

n Is about executions

n Most used type of communication research… but why?

Pretesting

n Has a very low predictive value n Is becoming increasingly difficult with the

new types of campaignsn Very difficult for respondents to judge

Difficult to judge

n Artificial context• Meeting room vs living room

n Artificial creative execution• Mock-up• Animatic• Script

n Artificial reaction• Ratio vs emotional

But sometimes, it works

4. POSTTEST

Posttest

n Qualitative and qualitativen Make sure what you test:

STRATEGY

IDEA EXECUTION

Posttests

n Posttests can really help fine-tune the strategy and the idea.

n But can it make executions better?• If it is a big success, you know it.• If it is a big failure, you know it.• If it is neither, you made average work, so

why invest in research?

Inconsistency between pre- and posttests

Especially with qualitativen Inconsistent baseline feedbackn Inconsistent copy feedbackn Inconsistent execution feedback

Thank you!